


Metamorphosis

by naboojakku



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Daenerys Targaryen Deserves Better, Daenerys Targaryen Is Not a Mad Queen, Daenerys Targaryen Lives, Dark Daenerys Targaryen, Dragons, Drogon - Freeform, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, Introspection, King's Landing, Massacre, Other, Post - A Game of Thrones, Post-Canon, Resurrection, Revenge, Self-Reflection, one day I'll be less angry about her character assassination, wish they wouldve let her burn it all down
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25730515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naboojakku/pseuds/naboojakku
Summary: Her eyes flickered across the ceiling. Cast in shadows, obscured by gloom, she could hardly make out a single detail. But it was drafty and dark and quiet, which meant she must be somewhere secret. Just hidden, maybe, or locked away.Daenerys Targaryen knew a thing or two about secrets.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------OR: Dany opens her eyes.
Relationships: Drogon & Daenerys Targaryen, Jorah Mormont & Daenerys Targaryen, Missandei & Daenerys Targaryen
Comments: 10
Kudos: 76





	Metamorphosis

**Author's Note:**

> **im still mad about it**

Hers was a name they would remember.

Shouted from rooftops. Whispered in the streets. Cursed behind closed doors, and perhaps open ones too. On the common people’s lips. In the twitch of a nobleman’s eye. Within the hushed murmur of a monk’s prayer. The eyes are the windows to the soul, they say, and their souls burn with the memory of her name. 

One moment, there was nothing. No rush of heat, no light at the end of a tunnel. Just an absence. 

Nothing. 

And then a jolt like an earthquake, except a million times stronger. A jolt like a world-shaking, like a tear in the universe. Pressure on her chest and neck, an ocean of it. There was a sun under her skin, a mountain on her chest—from nothing to everything in a blink. 

Then she opened her eyes, and there was light. Dim, hardly discernible, but light. 

The first breath of air was the hardest. The second and third, and all the ones after that, came easier. Not easy, not by any means, but easier. A desperate gasp, an indrawn hiccup that might’ve been a sob just as it might’ve been a scream. Then the exhale, and the pressure on her chest faded. Not entirely, but enough for her to understand that she was still here. Still present. 

Still alive. Or, perhaps, alive again. 

Her eyes flickered across the ceiling. Cast in shadows, obscured by gloom, she could hardly make out a single detail. But it was drafty and dark and quiet, which meant she must be somewhere secret. Just hidden, maybe, or locked away. 

Daenerys Targaryen knew a thing or two about secrets. 

Her senses still worked quite well, and so she used them. She was lying flat on her back on a stone slab. A giant one, by the feel of it—her hands couldn’t touch the edges on either side, and her feet weren’t dangling off the end either. The texture suggested it was very roughly hewn, and she sensed it hadn’t been used in quite some time. Her fingers brushed cobwebs. 

The air was damp and dewy and filled with a curiously fresh scent despite the general mustiness of the room, cavernous though it was. Every minute shift of her tired legs, every sharp gasp as she remembered the use of her lungs echoed threefold. 

_Somewhere large,_ she told herself. _Somewhere large and empty and cold. Somewhere quiet._

Her mind latched on to a word— _crypt_. Where the dead rested in eternal slumber. 

But she was not dead. Not yet, or not anymore, or perhaps never. Her thoughts jumbled as confusion set in. 

_Where am I? What was I doing just before?_ It was vital that she remembered. Jorah always told her that memory was a key. Not just to the past but to the future too. 

Those last few moments came in flashes. First, and always, shimmering at a low boil, the rage. How she remembered the rage. She felt it as she looked down from above. High above the city, swooping lost among the clouds, the air so stingingly fresh it tore the breath from her throat. Looking down on King’s Landing, feeling, briefly, like a god. The smoke and debris of what once were towering monoliths, walls ruptured, homes demolished, sacred and holy places flattened like wooden slats. All of it, burning. A reflection of the rage inside her, deep within her chest. A heart made of cinders.

There was no screaming, no loud shouts or alarmed orders called down from person to person—commander to soldier. Curiously quiet, King’s Landing sat destroyed but not ruined. Crippled but not broken. Half the city in flames, the other half in smoke. It was a sight that filled her with enormous satisfaction. _I did that,_ she told herself proudly, peering down at the chaos. _Me._ She’d stroked a hand down Drogon’s back. Her champion. Even in mid-air he preened at her touch, a soft, delighted chuff stirring a cloud to vapors. 

Then the bells.

Time fractured. Memories overlapped. Past and present became one—indistinguishable. The rage bloomed like a flower: a slow unfolding. Her vision went red, her mind disconnected from Dragon and the sights below her. All she could see was fire, and all she knew was that it was not enough. 

For her pain, for her loss, for her grief and upset and unending _rage_ , it was not enough.

So.

Burn them all. The peasants and nobles alike. The homes and churches. The Keep and the fruit stalls and the brothels. Burn the men and women and children. Burn the animals. The streets and doors and walls. The secret places and the known. Burn them all. 

In the end, ashes look the same.

Only then did the rage abate. Only then did she feel something other than an all-encompassing desire to raze this city, these people, their world, to the ground. Satisfaction bloomed once more and, sensing it, Drogon let loose a wild roar. _Ours,_ it said, and to his mother, _Yours._

The memories came quickly now as Daenerys blinked and turned her head, as her limbs lost their stiffness and began to twitch and shift. Her lungs did their work, and her heart managed to pump, although her blood was sluggish—thick in her veins. But it was happening. She was waking, and with the waking rose the sight of a fallen city.

Ashes fell over King’s Landing like a bizarre blanket of snow. With it came a blessed quiet. No more bells. No more screaming. Peace. She had brought peace. 

Landing in the ruins of what once was the greatest monument in King’s Landing—nay, all the Seven Kingdoms--she touched her feet to the cracked stones and smiled. The Red Keep, the king’s castle--it went by many names, across the centuries, but Daenerys knew it as only one. The home of the Iron Throne. 

This monstrous city, pieced together eons ago by her family. The Targaryens conquered, and they built, and they rose. High, so high, that a vicious downfall was inevitable. And yet along the way they built the ultimate wealth, the home of kings and queens, conquerors and martyrs, men and women who held power in their hands like an extra limb—indistinguishable from who they really were as people. Power was a part of the Targaryen line. It was the very foundation of her family. Take, and build, and rule.

So she would.

Her armies were ready, the realm subdued. All eyes watched—whether they were kind, worshipful, afraid, or suspicious did not much matter; they watched—for her next move. And she told them what would happen, what Targaryens did when in power. She would take, and take, and take, until the land was at peace once more. Free of tyrants, free of fear, free of death. When she was finished with it, the Seven Kingdoms would be a paradise. 

Then Jon pierced her with a knife, and blood wasn’t the only thing spilled. Dreams, wishes—her vision of the future. Hope, joy, happiness—ripped from the very tips of her grasping fingers. No family, no friends, no title. 

She’d fallen to the floor, reaching blindly for her dragons. _Drogon,_ her mind roared. _Rhagel_ , it screamed. _Viserion,_ it whispered, even as she knew those last two sons were far beyond reach. _My children. My life._ Her heart, revving like an engine, then sputtering. Her limbs stiff and cold. The floor beneath her hard and unforgiving. 

Staring at the sky through jagged pieces of what once was the magnificent throne room, Daenerys knew only one thing: she had not even sat on the Throne.

Then darkness. 

Now she rose, bare feet meeting frigid stone. She rolled her shoulders, working out the kinks and lingering stiffness. A deep breath, then two, then three. The stale air helped clear her mind, but it wouldn’t do to remain here too long. The shadows hinted at more memories, more betrayals. She could only handle so much. In time, they would come to her. In time, they would burn, too. 

Daenerys moved through the room like a phantom. Quiet and unobserved and faintly curious. Though it did not matter where she was, as it did not matter why. The only question that retained any degree of importance was: _How do I get back?_

She passed into a hallway. No doors. No light. Silent and empty. She emerged into a connecting corridor and was relieved to note a bright dash of sunlight at the far end. She walked faster, legs trembling but stable. Sheer determination alone had gotten her this far, and she would not falter now. 

Daenerys emerged into sunlight. Brilliant, mid-day sunlight. She stared, disbelieving, at the cloudless azure sky and the mountainous trees towering on every side. The land before her, for she was quite high up, spread for rolling miles in every direction. 

And in every direction, ruins.

Her heart thumped, just once, but she recognized its beat. This new melody sang in her veins. She looked, and she knew home.

_Valyria._

Off in a massive field of upturned dirt and rotting tree trunks, Drogon crouched over an animal carcass. Ripping off great, meaty chunks with teeth as long as her arm, as pointed as a knight’s sword, he did not at first notice her. This allowed Daenerys to examine him unobserved. 

Drogon was more than a beast. He was a god in his own right. The trees withered under his enormous bulk. His black scales shimmered under the harsh sun, and his great head swung side to side, assessing, calculating, even as he devoured what was likely his third or fourth meal of the day. He stood proudly, unapologetic, in his majesty, and Daenerys felt a thrill go through her at the sight of her only remaining son. The strongest, the most fearsome. Indomitable. 

Worlds would bow at their feet.

She raised a hand—wordlessly, for her throat was singed, and speaking would only rip it worse. Drogon caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and snarled, the sound like a thunderous crash of discordant notes. In the quiet valley, it echoed over and over until it lost itself in all the empty miles. 

Drogon saw her, and his next roar was triumphant. It said, _Mother._ It said, _You are here._ It said, _Now we begin._

And she smiled. 

In her head, she started a list. Someone once told her—or maybe she had overheard—that a list was the only way to keep track of those things most important. Sound advice, she’d thought at the time. 

So a list was what she made. 

Bran Stark, of course. Oh, yes, what a king, indeed. Sansa Stark. An insufferable girl, but not one to be underestimated. She knew that now. Arya Stark—that one would be tricky, certainly. Tyrion Lannister—and how sweet it would be. Then the loose ends. Lady Brienne of Tarth. Davos Seaworth. The Greyjoys. 

And Jon Snow.

The list would expand. She was sure of it. Inevitably she would encounter those who had betrayed her in secret too. But the length of said list bothered her not. They would all fall, in time. They would all burn.

For Missandei, for her parents, for Khal Drogo, for Jorah and Viserion and Rhaegal. Daenerys would burn them and smile as she did so. 

With a mighty flap of his wings, Drogon took to the sky. Air whooshed through the trees, cleaving a few in half, bending dozens more. His every stroke was a thunderclap. She watched his powerful muscles move beneath his scales as he approached, gliding and twisting in the air like he commanded it. Her throat tightened at the sight; her last child. 

Drogon landed on a crumbling stone balcony several dozen feet to her left. He chuffed, and the air expelled blew over her, rustling the ends of her coat and the bloody tips of her hair. She managed a small smile when he ducked his head, as if checking she was truly standing before him. 

_I am here, my life. I am here._

When she spoke, her voice cracked and splintered with pain, but compared to the rage, it was only secondary, and so she endured.

“Shall we begin?” 

Hers was a name they would know.

**Author's Note:**

> **just needed to keyboard smash this out since ill never forgive that ending**


End file.
